House fire in West Siberia kills family of 7, including 5 children

Firefighters reacting to an emergency (archive)

MOSCOW, March 31. /ITAR-TASS/. A fire and ensuing gas explosion at a village house near the western Siberian city of Tyumen killed 7 people, including 5 children, a local investigative committee reported on Monday.

According to investigators, all people killed in the fire at a wooden house in the village of Kosmakovo were relatives. There were two more adults in the house, when the fire erupted, but they managed to flee the house, although one of them was later hospitalized.

“Among the casualties are five children - two girls, born in 2008 and 2012, and three boys, born in 2006, 2007 and 2010,” the committee said. “Bodies of two women, born in 1959 and 1988, were discovered as rescuers cleared the debris.”

Investigators continue working at the scene of the tragic incident and, according to one of their versions, a family gathered to commemorate one of their late relatives and drank alcoholic beverages. A fire erupted in the house after all children went to their beds and as the blaze expanded, three gas canisters inside the house blew up.

Russian children’s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov ordered his local colleague to conduct an independent investigation into the death of five children and asked Vladimir Yakushev, the governor of the Tyumen Region, to take this investigation under his personal control.